Life in a Love
Life in a Love
Original Text
Robert Browning, Men and Women, vol. I (1855.) Rev. 1863.
1Escape me?
2Never--
3Beloved!
4While I am I, and you are you,
5 So long as the world contains us both,
6 Me the loving and you the loth,
7While the one eludes, must the other pursue.
8My life is a fault at last, I fear:
9It seems too much like a fate, indeed!
10Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed.
11But what if I fail of my purpose here?
12It is but to keep the nerves at strain,
13To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall,
14And, baffled, get up and begin again,--
15So the chace takes up one's life, that's all.
16While, look but once from your farthest bound
17At me so deep in the dust and dark,
18No sooner the old hope goes to ground
19Than a new one, straight to the self-same mark,
20I shape me--
21Ever
22Removed!
Publication Start Year
1855
RPO poem Editors
F. E. L. Priestley
RPO Edition
3RP 3.130.
Rhyme